


The Devil Makes Work

by Waltzing



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Class Differences, Hand & Finger Kink, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waltzing/pseuds/Waltzing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Childermass is obsessed with Henry Lascelles' hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil Makes Work

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the JSMN Kinkmeme.

Childermass had his feet up on a chair when Mr Lascelles was shown into the library. He was cleaning under his nails with a penknife and neither desisted nor acknowledged Lascelles when he strode into the room. He could sense Lascelles pausing to sneer at him, but declined to look up, even when he muttered "filthy habit" in Childermass's general direction.  
  
Childermass sighed. "Some of us have to get our hands dirty on occasion, Mr Lascelles. Comes with the job."  
  
"I shall tell Mr Norrell of your deportment while he is not here," Lascelles replied.  
  
Childermass half-shrugged.  
  
Lascelles stood there watching him for a moment before huffing and striding over to his own desk.  
  
Only then did Childermass look up, in time to watch Lascelles sit down and remove his gloves. Lascelles always took off his gloves rather primly, loosening one finger at a time before gently sliding them off. Lascelles' pampered, long-fingered hands held a strange fascination for Childermass. Pale, sometimes inkstained, elegant but soft-looking. Rather unlike his own, weather-beaten, calloused hands, his squared-off fingertips, his scars and chilblains  
  
Lascelles opened a book on his desk and took out a sheet of paper, a pen and some ink. However, he simply sat for a while and did not write anything. Childermass had noticed before that Lascelles was often unable to concentrate when it was only the two of them in the room.  
  
Sometimes Childermass experienced the same thing. There was always a certain tension in the air when it was just he and Lascelles, even when they weren't needling each other. It was as if they were both on guard, waiting for the other to make the first move. Whether to lash out, or something else, Childermass wasn't always certain.  
  
Deciding to distract himself from those thoughts, Childermass put down the penknife, stood up and went over to Mr Norrell's desk to see what he was currently reading. It turned out to be a proof of the latest issue of _The Friends of English Magic_ sent that morning by Lord Portishead. Using an index finger to keep Mr Norrell's page, Childermass flicked through it, skim-reading. It contained the same old safe, rather long-winded articles that it always did, giving the opinions of Mr Norrell and no one else.  
  
Whilst he was busy, Mr Lascelles had got up from his desk and quietly walked over to him. Childermass looked up when Lascelles spoke, rather louder than was needed:  
  
"What would Mr Norrell say, knowing you were pawing over his own private papers, with those, as you aptly called them, "dirty hands" of yours?"  
  
Childermass stared at Lascelles. "Probably the same as he would say if he knew you did the very same thing when he is away from home. Don't think I haven't seen you, Mr Lascelles, going through drawers and cases."  
  
Lascelles blushed. "How dare you accuse me-" he began, but Childermass cut him off.  
  
"Or is it acceptable for a gentleman such as yourself to pry, with his clean, mannered hands, but not the likes of me?"  
  
Lascelles didn't move and Childermass, feeling bolder than usual and finding himself doing what he had wanted to do for many months, stepped closer and took Lascelles' hands in his own. Lascelles' eyes widened, he tried to snatch them away, but Childermass grabbed one hand and held it tight.  
  
"What on earth do you think you are doing?" Lascelles asked, shocked, trying to pull away again.  
  
"Determining what kind of hands have the right to go through a gentleman's personal effects."  
  
Childermass held Lascelles' hand by the wrist and pulled it up slightly so he could look at it and Lascelles did not resist. Instead, he stilled completely, but his breathing was audible. Childermass could feel the fast pulse at his wrist.  
  
Childermass first examined the long, clever tapering fingers, with smooth, rounded nails the delicate pink of the inside of a sea-shell. There was a slight callous on the side of his middle finger, where the pen rests, but otherwise the skin was soft, clean, the only blemish an ink stain on his little finger, providing a complement to the blue veins that showed through the near-translucent skin of his wrist as he turned Lascelles' hand over, palm up. He lightly drew one finger the length of Lascelles palm, starting at the wrist and ending at the tip of the middle finger, and felt Lascelles shiver.

_Interesting,_ Childermass thought. He made a mental note to remember it.  
  
Lascelles himself was trembling, and for once, silent.  
  
Childermass remembered what the pretended object of his examination was. "It is amazing, is it not sir, that hands that snoop and pry can remain as dainty and soft as a lass's?"  
  
He dropped the hand as if it burnt him, and while Lascelles struggled to find the words for a retort, turned and walked out of the library.  
  
*  
  
In the next few weeks, relations between Childermass and Mr Lascelles were mostly cool. Neither of them spoke about what happened in the library that day, or said much to each other at all, for that matter, and Childermass took care to ensure that he was rarely alone with Lascelles.  
  
However, one morning, Mr Norrell, who had recently had a large shipment of books sent down from Hurtfew, was summoned to Whitehall, leaving Childermass, Lascelles and Drawlight to unpack the boxes.  
  
Lascelles was not happy with the arrangement and complained bitterly once Mr Norrell had left the house.  
  
"This is servants' work," he said, shooting Childermass a quick glance. "I don't see why you and I are obliged to do this, Drawlight." He unloaded another ancient book that was nearly falling apart from a trunk on to a side table.  
  
"Norrell doesn't trust the servants not to drop them, my dear Henry," Drawlight said, from where he had seated himself on the arm of a chair.  
  
"Or to read them," Childermass muttered.  
  
After a few more minutes of unpacking, with Drawlight pretending to help, but in reality keeping his fine clothes as far from the "dusty old books" as he could manage, Drawlight announced that he had a social appointment to keep that he had suddenly remembered. He ignored Lascelles' suspicious questions regarding who the appointment was with and left the library in a hurry. Childermass laughed softly. Drawlight had never been one to apply himself when any physical effort was required.  
  
Lascelles was not so amused, and rather roughly pried open the top of a wooden crate containing more books, in the process of doing so, he let out a pained gasp, dropping the crate lid and looking at the fingers of his right hand.  
  
"What's the matter?" Childermass asked.  
  
Lascelles ignored him.  
  
Childermass carefully put down the book he was holding and moved towards Lascelles.  
  
Lascelles noticed this and said quickly, "It's nothing, just a splinter."  
  
Childermass walked up to him. "Let me see," he said.  
  
Lascelles moved away from him slightly. "No, I said it's nothing."  
  
Childermass ignored his protests, grabbing Lascelles' wrist as he had done several weeks before, and examined the splinter. It was a rather large one, buried under the skin of Lascelles' index finger. Childermass looked at Lascelles for a second, considering, and quickly brought the finger up to his mouth, to suck at the splintered skin. Lascelles gasped but did not pull away.  
  
Childermass pressed his tongue against the underside of the finger and slightly bit at the skin he was sucking. Lascelles, bright red, stared dazedly at him. Childermass wondered how his mouth must feel to Lascelles. After a short while, Childermass removed the finger from his mouth and dropped Lascelles' hand. With his own finger, he swiped the tip of his tongue and removed the splinter that he had sucked out. "Rather a large one that," he said, showing the splinter to Lascelles.  
  
Lascelles said nothing, looking humiliated. Childermass flicked the splinter away.  
  
"Enjoy that, did you?" Childermass said when Lascelles still said nothing, and as he said it, he noticed that Lascelles himself was not in the most comfortable of positions, if the bulge between his legs was anything to go by.  
  
"I -I didn't ask you to do that!" Lascelles almost shouted. He was clearly trying to sound angry, but there was a tremble in his voice.  
  
"No, but you didn't stop me, did you?"  
  
Lascelles seemed to struggle to find words. "What makes you think you can come up to me - _touch_ me like that, with your, your _dirty_ mouth and -"  
  
"What, do you want me to apologise for sullying those pretty hands of yours?"  
  
Lascelles tried to stutter a retort and backed away, slightly. Childermass watched the way his pulse jumped at his throat, with interest.  
  
"You see," continued Childermass, "I can very well imagine all the unsavoury things you have used those hands for, and I'm not just talking about seducing married women. What about at school? You get to hear all sorts of stories about how the little lordlings spend their nights. Did you have a particular friend at school, Mr Lascelles? Did you touch him?"  
  
Lascelles shook his head. "You need to be quiet," he said, trying to sound imperious.  
  
"And if it wasn't touching other boys, did those lily-white hands ever slip under the covers at night, taking comfort in yourself? Do you still do that now, Mr Lascelles? You know they say it is a sin..."  
  
Lascelles managed a retort "As if you're so pure yourself!"  
  
"I think you like that about me," Childermass said confidently. "I have eyes, Mr Lascelles, I can see that you're in something of a predicament, right now". Here Childermass gestured towards Lascelles' arousal. "What else could have been the cause of that?"  
  
Lascelles refused to look Childermass in the eye, but Childermass noted that he did not move way from him.  
  
"I think you want more," Childermass said. He gently took Lascelles' right hand in his, the one that had previously had the splinter. Lascelles, still flushed, allowed him to do so with no resistance.  
  
Childermass idly stroked the hand with his thumb, then slowly sucked first one finger into his mouth, before moving onto the next one, lathing each with his tongue. Lascelles was breathing heavily, but remained otherwise silent. Childermass licked down the index finger, and around the delicate thin skin between it and the thumb. He bit gently on Lascelles' thumb, eliciting a moan from the man and causing Childermass to smile as he bit down slightly harder. He himself now felt increasingly heated and aroused.  
  
He planted a soft wet kiss on the place where the splinter had been before pressing Lascelles' palm fully against his mouth so that Lascelles could feel his stubble, and kissing it. He then proceeded to lick down the palm to Lascelles' wrist, gently scraping his teeth against the white skin there until it pinked.  
  
"Why are you doing this?" Lascelles asked weakly, looking nearly undone.  
  
"Why do you think?" Childermass said. At that, he lowered the hand and instead pressed it between his own legs so that Lascelles could feel the reason. Lascelles' eyes widened at Childermass's own arousal, but he squeezed his hand slightly, which nearly made Childermass's eyes roll back into his head.  
  
Suddenly, as if it came from an incredible distance, Childermass heard the sound of the front door opening. He pushed Lascelles away, who looked strangely affronted until he too heard the bustle of Mr Norrell arriving home and being greeted by the servants. Both men quickly moved to opposite sides of the room. Childermass stood by the box of books he had been unpacking and tried to compose himself. He looked up to find Lascelles watching him, almost hungrily. He grinned.  
  
"Until next time, Mr Lascelles," Childermass said, seconds before Mr Norrell entered the room. "Until next time."


End file.
